The Gamiest Gamerism that ever Gamed

[Cromagnonman]

For you guys trying out the Federals for the first time, your navy can make a huge difference in the Mississippi region. It's not uncommon for a naval squadron to annihilate a land stack when the latter is using riverine transport, with no losses to the ships. If you can put a reb stack in a position to have to retreat down a river, dropping a naval force in orange-orange can net you a nice coup de main. Oftentimes they capture artillery and/or supply units also. The same lopsided results can happen when land stacks meet on the water as well, although it's harder to figure who will have the upper hand. But it's a nice opportunity to get NM, experia ce, and seniority

[ArmChairGeneral]

That's awesome, but is it really gamey or is it just a clever and well executed tactic? It makes sense that a fleet of warships would be able to put the smack down on a hastily cobbled together flotilla of overloaded transport craft fleeing from battle. As to captures, that IS pretty unrealistic, since they ought to be at the bottom of the river.

I would like to put in a few more nominations for the GGteG award. 1) Putting siege artillery in a fort to add a lot of damage to fleet bombardments (credit: Captain Orso) 2) Loading a cav element onto a boat to give the fleet 5 Land Detection (credit: Gray Fox) 3) Putting CSA transports in the Shipping boxes to get Ocean Transport points (credit: GraniteStater, who hasn't been around here in a long time. This also may have been fixed in a patch, which would disqualify it.)

Not to say that I am above gaminess, AGEOD games are hard enough to win as it is that I certainly can't blame anyone for milking every advantage they can. I know I do, I'm just not creative enough to have come up with the really good ones

[jjw509]

That's awesome, but is it really gamey or is it just a clever and well executed tactic?

Depends on if it is Aethena or a PBEM oppenent. Athena may not be programmed well enough to note that the US riverine navy can have serious negative effects on riverine movement if she doesn't have ships to support the movement. It would be gamey because Athena couldn't learn the lesson. So it is an unfair advantage. This is the kind of stuff that makes games like this a little less fun. You have to restrain your valid tactics sometimes just because you know the AI can't learn to stop them. At that point it is "gamey" because you are exploiting the AIs lack of ability to learn and adapt rather its weaknesses.

Against a Human opponent. The Human will learn the lesson and bring his own cottonclads/gunboats or won't use riverine transport without backing of his navy or if he is sure no union river naval presence is there. So it isn't gamey.

It took me once to find out you don't want to riverine transport past an enemy fort. From that I also became to determine if there could be enemy gunboats in the region.

[Cromagnonman]

Interestingly, to look at the battle log, the ships' attack score is 0 based on terrain (beach). But, because the soldiers are making a landing (?), the ships then get an automatic 30% to hit. The land forces generally do not get to shoot back (the ratio of hits landed is about 100:1 or more). Also, because the soldiers are "landing," they cannot retreat, not even before the battle. This is perhaps the gamiest part of all. Athena does have a really hard time realizing that ships can affect troops trying to move across or down a river

[ifailmore]

the shipping box was kinda easy for me to figure it out after ai captured a couple of transport boats from the USA then I put them in the shipping box because it all made sense in my brain!

as the csa my gamey thing I do against ai is just smash and burn all the settlements in the far west and west area so I dont have to worry about that flank at all since they die moving southwards if you kill all your forts settlement above ozark area I maybe losing victory points if I do this im not sure

[grimjaw]

Gamerism:

Medical companies carry a huge amount of supply but they only nibble at it. They use 1 supply/turn, and store 20 supply, coincidentally the same amounts as a single supply wagon element. I guess they are medical companies / sutler wagons. Of course they don't draw supply like wagons do (?). But if you need supply in a pinch and can't spare the wagons, they'll keep a couple of standard infantry regiments from starving for an extra four turns. Engineers have the same supply setup, but they are slightly more expensive to construct.

Regional decisions: The Union's Strip Guns RGD only costs 5 WS; although the description says so, it isn't coded to weaken any ships. There are no cheaper artillery units available to the Union except freebies. They are unique units and they don't subtract from other force pools. Land Sailors RGD will remove a sailor unit from the force pool, but it doesn't cost you $/conscripts/WS to use it, and instead of waiting for the build time they are produced in one turn. Pointless to build sailor units when you can get them for free.

[Cardinal Ape]

I can't say that I can ever recall capturing supply or artillery units on the river. Does the game force the captured units onto an adjacent land region? Or do they stay in the river with riverine movement selected? I'd guess the river.



When I first started learning this game I had a fluke accident where one of my corps commanders was also simultaneously a division commander. At the time I didn't know it was against the rules. I thought all my other corps commanders without divisions were operating at half efficiency. So the min/max gamer part of me came out - I just had to get all my other corps as efficient as the other one. It took a few weird steps to get done, it didn't make perfect sense, but since I was new to the game I assumed that it was my poor understanding of the user interface.

I played my whole first game that way. When I started playing my second game, I got a bit frustrated with all the hoops I had to jump through to get my corps commanders in charge of divisions. So I came to the forum and searched for an easier method to get the job done. Obviously, what I discovered was that I was big fat cheat.

After a profuse apology to Athena, I ended up taking a break from CW2. Instead, I went back to playing Birth of America 2. No divisions or corps to worry about in that game.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Cardinal Ape,
That's funny, I did the exact same thing with Corps and Division command on my first game and felt exactly the same way.

Love, love, love WIA. It is my favorite AGEOD title out of the six I play.

[Cromagnonman]

The captured support units appeared in the naval stack just like any other land unit being transported in a naval stack

[Gray Fox]

IMHO the GGteG would be to use all of the CSA ocean transports in the Shipping Lanes box to get resources like the Union does. Since this game mechanic gives you either more money or more WS, you end up with 60 or so more WS per turn. I don't do this myself because the beta testers weren't smart enough to figure this out so that the programmers could fix it.

That's really the acid test for gameyness. Either something is an exploit that should be fixed or it is valid and should be added to Athena's toolbox. I advocated pgr's suggestion about artillery Divisions. These are historical and a successful tactic. Athena was actually updated to use them. Everyone gets a better game because players weren't trying to play down to the AI.

[Rod Smart]

I recall a discussion on this forum where someone playing as the CSA captured General Grant, and was able to use him as a commander.




My gamey tactics- sending Butler to Fort Pickens to get captured. Putting Southern transports in shipping box. Using Copperheads to fill out corps stacks since they don't need command points. Flatboats to create depots. Scorched earth to eliminate paths behind my lines and allow me to choose where to fight. Putting the fixed units in and around DC in corps.

[Straight Arrow]

Since Texas is so hard to hold, I never build industry there and I like to milk the Lone Star state for all it's worth.

I use the requisition and draft cards to drain the cow dry. This is not very historical as Texas ends up providing a very disproportional share of the odd ball additions to the CSA's cash and conscript pool.

[grimjaw]

RE: the ocean transport trick, what triggers that? Is it the element family? The *CommerceShip* attribute? If it's the latter, that could be removed for CSA transports.

[Cardinal Ape]

My gamey tactics- sending Butler to Fort Pickens to get captured.

I've never done that myself. I assumed that when the general is captured/killed you would lose NM and VP based on their seniority, just like passing them over for promotion. Is that not the case?

@grimjaw, I have not been able to replicate the CSA transports in the shipping box. It may have been patched out. Hopefully, it was. That one is clearly an exploit, not a gamey tactic.

One other small gamey thing: You can put locked units in the same stack with coastal artillery, if the artillery fires on any passing ships the entire stack will become unlocked. Good for Norfolk as the CSA.

[minipol]

I had mentioned the CSA transport thingie also around the time GraniteStater mentioned it. It does feel wrong to get supplies this way
As for Grant, that's what I had a couple of months back in a game as the CSA. I captured him and could use him. It was weird.

[Cromagnonman]

Artillery divisions have some historical basis, but artillery in general is way over-represented in the game. Even late in the war, Federal armies typically had about 2 batteries (1 CW2) element per division, a 4-battery battalion attached to each Corps, and an army artillery reserve of perhaps 4 battalions. Thus CW2 armies generally have way too much artillery

[LCcmdr]

Artillery divisions have some historical basis, but artillery in general is way over-represented in the game. Even late in the war, Federal armies typically had about 2 batteries (1 CW2) element per division, a 4-battery battalion attached to each Corps, and an army artillery reserve of perhaps 4 battalions. Thus CW2 armies generally have way too much artillery

And, the amount of arty really does seem to make a difference when larger stacks clash. However, arty doesn't appear to have any significant impact in small stack engagements (when one side has arty but the other doesn't). This is particularly irksome when I've sent cav and horse arty after Copperheads or other cav yet get very little kill ratio in combat. IOW, I would expect the side with Cav (to keep them bunched), infantry, and arty to gain superior victories against enemy stacks that lack such diversity.

[hanny1]

Artillery divisions have some historical basis, but artillery in general is way over-represented in the game. Even late in the war, Federal armies typically had about 2 batteries (1 CW2) element per division, a 4-battery battalion attached to each Corps, and an army artillery reserve of perhaps 4 battalions. Thus CW2 armies generally have way too much artillery

My understanding of why this is so is because the force pools are based on total numbers of Reg/Bttns formed, resulting in Armies containing more Bttns of Arty that existed in history.

[Aurelin]

Gamey is when your opponent, unknown to you, takes *every* land unit that can move, sticks them east, then moves